Spirited Away/WMG

The characters eventually evolve from humans into frogs and slugs.

First one here? Anyways, in the Japanese + English subtitles, it is said by a character somewhere along the lines of "The monster has already eaten two frogs and a slug!" My guess is that the employees where once in Chihiro's case, and had forgotten their names, so they are stuck there. Then eventually turn into a slug if female, or a frog if male. I suck at WMG ... I'm done. If it's obvious or stupid, go ahead and remove it.

- But Lin is a weasel according to Word of God. My guess is that all the workers (With some exceptions) are simply spirits of animals; weasels, slugs and frogs being the main ones.
- Oh my god... Tsunade was a beautiful princess in Japanese myth who could control slugs; Jiraiya was her lover who could control toads and frogs. Fridge Brilliance!
Maybe if humans work at the bathhouse enough they become frogs, slugs, or weasels. I just thought of this cause of what Haku said.

Chihiro was actually a young woman working as an environmental worker, and the movie is an artistic rendition of her experiences in cleaning rivers and other bodies of water

Chihiro was literally cleaning polluted rivers.

Parents turning to pigs and getting separated = Chihiro leaving parents' home and moving to an adult life.
The Kohaku River = her inspiration in becoming an environmental worker.
Yubaba = Chihiro's boss.
Chihiro becoming as Sen = uuhhh... Chihiro was the 1000th employee?
- Sen = yen/100 = Newbie name. "Sen" got used to being talked down to, until a superior (a former acquaintance from the Kohaku River area) was reminded by and helped to remind her that people are people, not numbers, and they're in it instead of some other job to help the environment.
Rin = Chihiro's Sempai.
Chihiro talking to pigs = Chihiro trying to contact her parents.
Cleaning the Stink Monster = Chihiro's first big assignment.
No Face = a friend of hers who unintentionally messes up things OR...
No Face = a really stubborn body of water that refuses to be cleaned up.
- No Face = Small river known for gold flakes because of something upstream that produces pyrite. Someone drowned while trying to get the "gold" and dammed the proper flow of the stream, and Chihiro (who had previously enjoyed the peaceful, clean location) had to pull out the body.

Hmm... So the place was a theme park that had destroyed a local river when it was built, causing a nearby railroad track to flood and the people to start moving away, so that the railroad stopped selling tickets direct to the area? The baby was the boss's child whom she kept bringing to the river cleaning company's headquarters and spoiled it, and Chihiro having to bring it along while on an administrative assignment instead of leaving it unsupervised taught it to not be such a big baby?

- Well, Miyazaki did say that as fantastical as it all seemed, it did have some basis in reality. For example, the "stink spirit" that turned out to be a river spirit or something? Based on his personal experience with cleaning up a river; there actually was a bicycle in it!

Everything in the Spirit World was transformed from either someone--or something--eating the cursed food, as punishment for breaking the rules, or because they forgot their names.

This means that the food being eaten, the architecture, the tiny bits of coal being burnt up...was all either a human, an animal, or a supernatural spirit. Pleasant dreams!

The coal is almost definite, if Yubaba's threat was not simply hollow. But assuming it's not, I have to wonder: does burning the coal kill the one so turned, or change him/her/it back to the previous form? Yubaba obviously can't afford to essentially kill off every worker who makes a minor error, so...

Chihiro will grow up to be a Shinto priestess

She still has her magic hairband to connect her to the Spirit World. Also, Haku promised her that they would meet again, and spirits can't break their promises.

Yubaba and Zeniba are the same person.

Am I the first one to mention this? They sound the same, they look the same, and CHIHIRO even calls "Yubaba" Granny.

You know, when you mention it, there wasn't a single scene in the movie with the two of them together...
I wrote a short fanfiction around this idea (Yubaba's Night), with the explanation that she has a magically split personality.
I thought the movie clearly states that they're twins..?

No-Face is Missingno.

Both duplicate items, corrupt whatever they touch and are found alongside an ocean.

Epic. Missingno. needs more love.

Yubaba's son grows up to be a very spoiled wizard.

Because face it, even with Chihiro's help that boy will still be spoiled beyond all belief by the time he grows up.

Howl!

The River Spirit that Chihiro helped clean was Haku's grandfather.

Pretty self-explanatory... They look like they could be related.

Yubaba never really hated Chihiro.

There seems to be quite a bit of evidence that while she may not LIKE her, she doesn't outright despise her. It's not like she is purposefully malicious to her all the time. Also, at the end when Chihiro says none of the pigs are her parents, she says, "Are you sure that's your answer?" Chihiro never said that was going to be her answer, she thought it was a mistake. When Yubaba said that maybe she was giving her a hint that it was an option.

When Chihiro was a kid, her sandals drifted into a small pond where they were mistaken for Mei's sandals.

It's never specified but the pond could have been connected to the Kohaku River back when it existed.

Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro take place in the same universe. Chihiro is the mother in My Neighbor Totoro

Totoro and Spirited Away clearly take place in the same world: there is a tree shown in the first scene of Spirited Away that is eerily similar to the one under which Totoro resides (perhaps from a more developed angle--this side of the mountain has been built up more). Furthermore, both movies feature the soot ball spirits, and Totoro could easily be a creature found within the bath house in spirited away. Furthermore, if the two indeed take place in the same universe and better yet, in a similar area, Chihiro could easily be a character in My Neighbor Totoro: for instance, the mother.

or Chihiro's mother is Satsuki or Mei, which seems more likely since My Neighbour Totoro takes place at an earlier date and time than spirited away, you can tell by the clothes.

The whole story is an allegory for prostitution

Maybe it’s a dark theme, given the target audience, but the themes in Miyazaki's films (and anime in general) are rarely super-obvious. But let’s look at the facts. First of all, Chihiro loses her name; this could be indicative of how a prostitute rarely uses her true identity while “on duty”, using a pseudonym. It’s not an honorable or dignified profession, after all. An even bigger loss of identity for Chihiro is that her “new” name is a number. Second, bathhouses have historically been used as brothels, and in the original Japanese version, many characters refer to Chihiro as a yuna. This word does indeed refer to a female bathhouse worker, but historically referred to the type who would often provide “services” to male clientele. Also, in this particular bathhouse, most customers are male (or ambiguous gender), while most workers are female, the toad-like male spirits being administrative types. One can even surmise that the reason No-Face becomes such a spendthrift (while effectively drunk) is because he’s looking for the one specific yuna who lifted him out of his depression. (Yeah, not the most pleasant thought there…)

Chihiro was Dead All Along

An odd theory, maybe, but this suggests Chihiro is dead and her experiences in the Spirit World being a test posed by the afterlife to reach Heaven, much like Dante does in The Divine Comedy. (Naturally, this makes Haku the equivalent of Virgil.) The beginning has a lot of things that suggest this, like how Chihiro is reclining while holding flowers (the way one would in a coffin) then she and her parents go through a dark tunnel with a light at the end... seem familiar? This would make the Spirit World a type of Purgatory where a mortal soul confronts her past life and cleanses herself of sins and flaws, undergoing trials which are - hopefully - rewarded with freedom from the “impure” mortal form and ascension to Paradise. Failing these tests would mean being cast into Hell - which in Chihiro's case might mean being trapped in the Spirit World forever, possibly a fate that has befallen Lyn and other once-human spirits - although in this case, she manages to win freedom not only for herself but for Haku and her parents. The final test is at the end (after being warned to not look back) where she leaves morality behind forever and proceeds to her final reward.

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